Salyer a victim of 'Greek tragedy,' defense says in seeking minimum prison term

Seeking a minimum prison term for their client, attorneys for Scott Salyer depict the Pebble Beach agribusinessman as a broken man dealing with near-lifelong alcohol abuse and personal flaws that caused "a fall from grace in ancient Greek tragic proportions."

Salyer, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced next week in a Sacramento federal court after pleading guilty nearly a year ago to racketeering and price-fixing charges in the government's Operation Rotten Tomato investigation of food industry corruption.

Under the plea deal, Salyer faces a four- to seven-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors want the maximum term, while Salyer's defense argues for the minimum — preferably at the minimum-security Lompoc prison camp — in a sentencing memo filed this week.

Salyer, the grandson of a powerful San Joaquin Valley farming family, owned a group of produce companies, extending from California to New Zealand, that he ran out of his corporate headquarters in Monterey's Ryan Ranch.

An accomplished pilot, Salyer flew private jets out of Monterey to keep tabs on his farming empire. It all came crashing down after the FBI began looking into wrongdoing at his processed-tomato company in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the largest suppliers in the country of tomato paste and related products to major food makers.

Prosecutors said SK Foods paid bribes to customers' buyers, sold substandard product at inflated prices and sought to rig prices. They said Salyer condoned the practices and personally was involved.

The defense's 51-page sentencing memo, which Salyer's attorneys sought to file under seal, paints a picture of a once high-flying businessman whose world was destroyed.

Salyer spent seven months before he could make bail doing "truly hard time" in the Sacramento County Jail, coming out of the ordeal both physically and psychologically distressed, the defense memo says.

Since then, Salyer has spent the past 2½ years on home confinement in Pebble Beach. The former hardworking businessman and philanthropic community member now does little more than sit home, read, surf the Internet, contemplate his predicament and drink alcohol, the defense says.

He has a number of health problems, but the defense cites his use of alcohol — which started at age 13 — in asking that his prison sentence include admission to an alcohol treatment program.

"To this day, he consumes one to two bottles of wine or mixed vodka beverages equivalent to 10 to 12 servings of liquor a day," the defense memo says.

The defense also asks the court to forgo a heavy fine — no more than $20,000 — and restitution payments, saying Salyer "is completely underwater."

Salyer has a negative net worth, faces two bank judgments totaling more than $160 million and is also a defendant in at least 10 civil cases where parties are seeking damages, the defense memo says.

"He has lost his business and his home, suffered personal financial ruin and lost all standing in his community and the business world," the memo says.

The defense says Salyer is truly remorseful. It would be "highly unlikely" he will be able to get back into the agricultural industry when he leaves prison, the defense memo says.

"(He) is truly sorry for the suffering he has brought upon his employees, customers, creditors, friends and family," the memo says.

The defense quotes several of Salyer's friends and his sister in asking the court to consider his "genuine remorse."

His sister Linda Lee says: "I have seen a great deal of positive growth in Scott. ... He is a simpler man, asking very little these days. I welcome the degree of humility and contrition I now see in Scott."

In response papers, prosecutors reiterate arguments that Salyer should receive a seven-year sentence and $1.25 million fine.

They say his "loss of stature" in the community shouldn't be a factor in reducing his sentence.

"Greek tragedy is a little too dramatic to characterize what happened here," federal prosecutor Matt Segal says in a memo. "Defendant cheated on his customers, creditors and ex-wives. They found out, cut him off and pursued remedies in various civil cases."

As for Salyer's contributions to charities and schools, prosecutors say most wealthy defendants can make that argument.

But wiretapped conversations, Segal says, show that Salyer "proved himself an unabashed bigot."

In one conversation, after a financial officer quit SK Foods "over all of the crime going on," Salyer used a slur to say he didn't want a Jew in the position, the prosecutor says.

Segal says Salyer simply is a person who "seems never able to pass up an opportunity to take an angle through deceit."